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Local 'House Of Hoarder' Surprises Estate Sale Experts

Seasoned professionals in estate sales said they have never seen anything like a home on Oklahoma Avenue. They're calling it the House of Hoarder.

Tom Ewart, of Open House Estate Sales, has been in business nearly 30 years and thought he had seen everything. But no experience had prepared him for his current project he's calling the "House of Hoarder."

"The one room we can't even get into. The daughter said the last time she was in that room was 1977," Ewart said.

The hoarding goes back from 1948 to almost present day, and much of the stuff is brand new.

From top to bottom the house is filled with shoes, clothes, jewelry, antiques, beds, but no place to sleep, food, but no place to cook or eat. Neighbors said there was once a car but getting it in and out was a chore.

"She would take boxes out so that she could get into her car, pull the car out, and then put the boxes back in the garage and then close the door and the same thing when she came back," neighbor Shirley Killough said.

They said this was an intelligent woman, but hoarding experts said many hoarders don't realize they have a problem.

"You know there are different kinds of hoarding," said Brenden McDaniel of Action Organization Services.

McDaniel has been featured on A&E's reality show "Hoarders." He's hired to help hoarders from age 14 to people in their 80s. He said people will find a hoarder of some variance every two blocks. He went professional after a personal experience with his mother.

"Things started to degenerate with her, and she ended up taking her own life, and I felt really awful about that. I tried to help her, but I felt angry as a son, 'How could you get this way? We didn't grow up like this,' and now I realize after the schooling and training I've had that it was depression, and there were other things going on. So at least I can help other people. I couldn't help my mom, but I can help other people," McDaniel said.

"She was a nice lady. I mean, really, you couldn't ask for a better neighbor," Killough said.

She bought everything at a bargain, but when she had a sale, she marked everything so high, nobody would buy it, so she had to keep it. On the day she died, she called her daughter and said, 'I think I'm going to die today.' Four hours later she was gone, Anderson said.

The items will be on sale Monday and Tuesday at 3300 W. Oklahoma Avenue.